Four centuries after those modest containers come pieces like the fabulous 3 ½-foot-tall Qing dynasty "Grand Imperial Vase," whose five parts include a trumpet-shaped top with gold handles in the form of curvy, semi-abstract mythic creatures; a bulbous body profusely covered by fish and flowers on a turquoise background; and a base supported by three golden chimera.
This "little game" is a risky business in which to involve a child, but it has to be better than life as usual in the Worli chawls, a slum built by the colonial powers as housing for textile workers in which each family is consigned to a room the size of a modest shipping container.
But the ride is spectacular: villagers rising at dawn then carrying their modest wares in vast containers on their heads to set up roadside stalls while small children clamber up mountainsides for school wearing immaculate uniforms.
They now sell the fruits for the modest price of $3 a container.
Across the city, delis and bodegas are a familiar and vital part of the streetscape, modest places where customers can pick up necessities, a container of milk, a can of soup, a loaf of bread.
For me, on my modest scale, a gallon and half fills an eight-ounce container with pure grey salt.
When Dane tells Warren about his plans for the dance floor, Warren says: "That's modest!" Dane tells Warren about a studio made out of shipping containers and Warren slows.
There was a modest increase in the proportion drawing up drug solutions from common containers at last injection in both Kiphire (30.7% to 46.8%) and Zunheboto (41.3% to 53.8%).
He first came to do business in China ten years ago, and had achieved modest success by 2004, when he placed a large order — ten shipping containers of shoes — only to discover, upon delivery, that his supplier had used cheap glue.
It's a modest vessel by shipping terms — 250 feet long and capable of carrying 120 containers according to the concept — but will be capable of loading, navigating and unloading without a crew.
